Time for Conservatives to Tremble?

I’m no conservative. But if I were, images like this would make me very nervous. I’m starting to wonder if Paul Krugman’s warning might be more than just wishful liberal thinking. The recent spate of teachers’ strikes might be pushing the GOP into a very dangerous position electorally.

Is Arizona’s Jay Bertelsen putting the handwriting on the wall for the GOP … ?

Don’t get me wrong: I understand that there has long been a chicken-little element to American conservative thinking, especially among religious intellectuals. Things seemed dire for conservatives in 1925, then again in 1962, then again in 2015. Conservative intellectuals like Rod Dreher have created a cottage industry of alarmism.

This time, though, the threat to conservatism is coming from a different direction. As The Economist reports, when even self-identified Christian conservative teachers are out on strike, the long, productive marriage between conservatism and the Republican Party looks mighty shaky. Could recent triumphs for conservative Republicans lead unexpectedly to a deepening, divisive schism between conservatives and the GOP? Could it push conservatives back out into the electoral cold, split between the two major parties?

As The Economist argues this week, conservatives and the whole Republican Party would be smart to worry. As they explain,

states where teaching unions are weaker now have more politically active teachers. Ms. Marohn, one of the demonstrators in Phoenix, says that when parents ask her mother, also a teacher, what they can do to help, she tells them to vote. That should worry Republicans. There are 3.2m public-school teachers in America. Giving them a financial reason to head to the polls could spell trouble for some Republicans running in states with teacher unrest. Arizona, North Carolina and Colorado are all battleground states. Republicans had also fancied that they could flip the West Virginia Senate seat held by Joe Manchin, a conservative Democrat. For want of more chalk could the Senate be lost.

When conservative Christian teachers take to the streets in demonstrations against GOP administrations, I can’t help but wonder what the electoral future will bring. If it turns significant numbers of self-identified Christian conservatives against Republican candidates, we might just see a big shake-up at the polls.